(I work in a charity shop. A customer approaches me and simply says the name of a band that I’ve never heard of.)

Me: “Pardon?”

Customer: “Do you have any [Band] CDs?”

Me: “I don’t think so.”

Customer: “But it’s Wednesday.”

Me: *pause* “Yes, it is.”

Customer: “You said you were getting some more in on Wednesday.”

Me: “We do get new stock in on Wednesdays, but we’ve just finished sorting through this week’s delivery, and I definitely don’t remember seeing anything by them.”

(Again, I work in a charity shop. Our only stock is from donations and deliveries from other shops. I’d never seen him before, and I’ve no idea which of my colleagues told him about our Wednesday deliveries, but he seemed completely baffled by the fact that we don’t control what people choose to donate to us.)

(I work in a pet store. I’m the only manager on the floor, and one night a customer approaches my cashier with several receipts but no items.)

Customer: *points at a $50 product on her receipts* “Can you tell me what this is?”

(Items are usually listed on the receipt with a ten-digit UPC, a price, and a brief description. Sometimes the description clearly says what the item is, like, “tp collar blue,” but more commonly it’s a jumble of abbreviations and random letters. I look at the receipt and see that this case is the latter.)

Me: “Well, what did you purchase? If we can get a description of the item, we can go find its section and narrow it down to the matching UPC.”

Customer: “I don’t remember what I purchased! Can’t you just tell me what I bought?”

Me: “Unfortunately, ma’am, if we look up the UPC on the register, it will just give us the same description that’s on your receipt. Do you have any recollection at all about what you bought? Do you still have the item?”

Customer: “No! My mother is going to return it in another state! I just need to know what it is!”

Me: “So… your mother has your items? She will probably have better luck at the store where she returns it, since she has the actual purchase. Even without a receipt, they will at least have the item and barcode. Maybe you could ask her what she’s returning?”

Customer: *shoves the receipt at me again* “Are you telling me that you don’t know what I purchased? I have the receipt! Can’t you just type in the numbers somewhere and get a picture of the item or something?”

Me: “I’m sorry; ma’am, but our registers don’t have that feature.”

(The customer stormed out, completely enraged that I didn’t know what she’d purchased when even SHE didn’t know! Did she expect me to have the hundreds of thousands of items in the store memorized by their ten-digit UPC numbers?)

Customer: “Excuse me. Do you have any regular French bread or just the European style?”

Me: *honestly having no idea what the customer means* “I’m not sure; let me ask coworker.”

(I call the question out to my coworker.)

Coworker: *clearly a bit baffled by the question himself* “Here, let me show you our options.”

(He goes out and talks to the customer while I go in back to do some of the nightly cleanup. Shortly my coworker comes back to finish his own cleanup.)

Me: “Hey, [Coworker], isn’t France in Europe?”

Coworker: *smiling knowingly* “Yeah, it is.”

Me: “Then what was she asking?”

Coworker: “I have no idea!”

(I work as a cashier at a popular grocery store in our area. A female customer in her twenties comes through my line, and I check out her order as usual. In the end, she hands me a few coupons, and all scan accordingly except for one.)

Me: “Oh, this appears to be an [Other Store] coupon.”

Customer: “What? You guys don’t take manufacturer coupons?”

Me: “Not if they’re specified for a different store. I’m sorry.”

(I start to hand the coupon back to her, after showing her where the coupon states, “Redeemable at [Other Store],” but she shakes her head.)

Customer: “It doesn’t say that it’s redeemable only at [Other Store], so shouldn’t you be able to take it? Because if not, I don’t want [item].”

(Rather than argue with her, I offer to check with my supervisor on the matter, and she agrees. My supervisor, of course, confirms what I have been saying and assures me that it is definitely an [Other Store] coupon and we cannot accept it here.)

Me: “She said it is definitely an [Other Store] coupon. The barcode is different and, as we discovered already, it is not recognized by our system. I’m very sorry. Would you like me to void [item] for you?”

Customer: *sighs heavily, shaking her head* “No, forget it. This is a pain in the a**!”

(She then paid for her order in a grumpy manner and left. By the way, the coupon was for 50 cents.)

(The company I work for has investment products that are not liquid just due to the nature of the investment. A lot of our clients are older and get upset when they’re told that they can’t withdraw their funds on short notice. There are some people we know well, investors that we can’t appease no matter what. On this day, the lady who calls in is one of our familiar characters, who seems to feel she deserves special treatment even when she’s horrible. So, it isn’t really a surprise when she says calls both me and my coworker — who talked to her a few minutes ago and was hung up on — rude and demands to speak to our manager.)

Customer: “I want your manager to call me back as soon as possible! It’s very important!”

Me: “I’ll have him call you as soon as he’s free, ma’am.”

Customer: “I said as soon as possible, not when he’s free!”

Me: “Ma’am, that is as soon as possible. He can’t call you if he’s not free to do so.”

(The customer hung up on me.)